With a clattering of iron wheels, a sinister plume of smoke, and a slightly-less sinister chuff-chuffing noise,
And so, it's time to tease you a little more with a few glimpses into my new novel. They say a picture paints a thousand words - so here's a whole short-story's worth from Eric's easel...
*****
And finally... another excerpt from the diaries themselves, where our intrepid party discover the tragedy that has struck an old friend...
Colonel Neville Goodenough’s Personal Notes, Saturday,
October 24th 1925
The cab drove away as I
walked towards the door of the bedsit where our friend’s card suggested we
would find him. As the others watched, I
knocked on the door, not at all sure what to expect.
I admit that I was surprised after a few moments the door
opened an inch or so, and Beddows peered out into the street, blinking in the
grey light of the day.
Now Beddows is a man fastidious in nature, and respected
around town as one of the finest manservants a fellow could ask for. I have
never seen him anything other than immaculately turned out, so to see the
gaunt, dishevelled figure blink nervously at us without a hint of relief came
as almost as much a shock to me as anything I saw in the trenches. I heard
Betty and Violet gasp behind me, but he paid them no attention.
‘You came,’ he said, flatly, leaving the door open just a
crack. He seemed to be waiting for something.
‘Now look here, Beddows,’ I said, stepping into the
doorway, ‘I understand you’ve had some trouble, but we need to know if your
master is inside. Are you going to leave us on the doorway like travelling salesmen?’
This shook Beddows out of whatever spell had possessed
him. He mumbled an apology, and opened the door. Ignoring our questions, and
our coats, he ushered us down a short hall into a small room, whereupon the
cause of the poor man’s discomfiture became sadly apparent.
It was a tiny bedroom, grimy and dank. The drapes were pulled
closed, shutting out what grey light would otherwise have filtered in from the
street outside. As we shuffled into the room, our eyes becoming accustomed to
the gloom within, we became aware of a dark figure lying on the bed. As we
entered, the figure started, and emitted a peculiar noise, somewhere between a
whine and a rasp, which immediately made me think of the field hospitals, and
the poor devils who had been gassed by the Hun.
We crowded around the bed, all eyes upon the figure. The
poor man was covered by a thin white sheet to protect his dignity, but sadly
there remained little of it left to protect.
‘Julius?’ Betty whispered, unbelieving. It was, indeed,
difficult to recognise the poor wretch before us as our avuncular host of the previous
evening. His hair and famous moustache were gone, as were his eyebrows. The
skin of his face and arms was blackened and cracked, except for several large
red and weeping sores. One of his eyes was glazed and white, and the other one
flitted from one to the other of us, never resting in one place for long. The
room stank of smoke and blood. Horrified, it was on my mind to grab Beddows and
demand why he had not brought the professor immediately to a hospital, when
Julius lifted one of his arms and laid a blackened claw upon Betty’s hand. He
smiled, then winced in pain. ‘My
friends,’ he said, in a voice that was barely a whisper, making us crowd around
the bed to hear him. ‘Thank God you have come.’
Written down, Smith’s speech appears clear and rational,
but be aware that in reality this was punctuated by numerous coughs, pauses and
sighs. Often his voice faded into incoherence and several times he was silent
for so long that we feared he had passed into unconsciousness. Despite this, he
managed to talk for several minutes, and though his speech made little sense to
me, and must surely have been coloured by delirium, I will try and lay down in
these notes as sensible a version of his words as I can piece together from his
broken voice and my own poor memory.
‘I cannot bear to talk for long. Please, for a moment,
listen to me, and I shall try and explain how I came to this sorry state.
‘You are aware, of course, that I have been on the trail
of the Sedefkar Simulacrum – at first, as an archaeological curiosity. Lately,
however, I have come to realise it is something much more – a source of great
power.
‘At the end of the Eighteenth Century it was taken apart
and scattered. I initially planned to retrieve the pieces for the museum in the
University of Vienna - but now I realise this was arrogant folly. The thing
must be destroyed!’
Betty began to ask Julius a question, but he held up his
hand and was overcome by a fit of coughing. Beddows held a handkerchief to his
mouth as he did so, and it came away stained with blood and some black
substance.
‘Last night, as we returned to our home, Beddows and I
were attacked by Turkish madmen. I know little of them, save that I believe
they seek the Simulacrum themselves, for their own dark purposes. We barricaded
ourselves indoors, so they tried to burn us alive. Fortunately, Beddows found a
way out. Not before I...’
He gestured helplessly to his crippled form, and his
voice faded into silence. His one good eye looked around the room, and his
voice was even hoarser than before when he continued.
‘To have come to such a place! To have fallen so far!’
Betty laid her hand over his to comfort him, but he
winced and drew it back from her, though he tried to smile.
‘I am afraid, my friends, to come out of hiding. They
would stop at nothing, these men!’ He glanced across to his manservant.
‘Beddows has a plan to escape, but the less we speak of it, the better.’
‘Most of my notes were destroyed in the fire, or else
taken by the Turks, but I managed to rescue something – the summaries of my
researches. The Turks will know as well now.’
He paused, his one eye staring at the ceiling, as if
building courage for his next statement.
‘And so, my friends,’ he said, looking back at each one
of us in turn, ‘It falls to me to pass this burden to someone other than
myself. I dare not ask, yet I hope that you will take it for me. The statue
must be recovered and destroyed before these men find it.’
He suddenly sat up in the bed, his eyes wide and staring.
‘I cannot show you what I have seen! You cannot know what I know!’ he cried
out. ‘I only hope, and pray....you must trust me! The statue must be
destroyed!’
Such strenuous effort had a grave effect upon him, and he
fell back to the bed, exhausted. He began muttering under his breath, and it
seemed was no longer aware that we were present.
‘I am sorry. For them, for me. For all of us. I am the
lucky one. I may be spared. I am sorry. So sorry.’
He voice failed, and his consciousness soon afterwards.
His breathing slowed, but did not stop. I think all of us were relieved to see
him asleep, and so temporarily released from his agonies. We looked at each
other in shock, and then to Beddows, who stood quietly in the corner.
‘He is delirious,’ Alfonse said, sadly, ‘to be taken in
by such a fairy story. I am sorry for him.’
I nodded. Betty frowned, but it was Beddows who replied.
‘My master is not insane, sir – at least, he did not
imagine the attack on the house last night! I saw them with my own eyes.’
Alfonse fell silent, pondering. Beddows’s eyes met
Betty’s, as she seemed the most sympathetic in the room.
‘Please consider my master’s words, Madam. He asked me to
give you these.’
He handed Betty a few pieces of paper covered in Julius’s
cramped handwriting.
Grace and Violet were looking at each other, each with a
sceptical expression mirrored on the other’s face. Beddows was not slow to see
it.
‘I do not know if my master speaks truly,’ he said,
glancing at the figure in the bed. Julius’s mouth twitched in his sleep and a
fearful expression crossed the manservant’s brow as he must have remembered the
night of terror the two of them had just experienced. ‘I can only tell you that
he believes it to be so. He thinks this statue is of great importance, and he
is a far wiser man than I am. I cannot tell you what to do, but who amongst you
would refuse the wish of a dying man?’
The words ‘dying man’ echoed around the small room.
Although it had not been spoken of before, it was obvious that Julius did not
have much time remaining.
‘Please,’ Beddows said, his eyes on Julius’s sleeping
form. ‘Read the notes. Consider his words.’
Betty folded the notes carefully in half, and placed them
in her bag. She laid her hand gently upon Beddows’s arm. He jumped, as if struck,
but did not remove it. She looked into his eyes.
‘What will you do?’ she asked.
‘As the professor said,’ Beddows replied, ‘I have...I
have an escape plan. There is someone who can...care for him. But I dare not
speak of it. Please.’ He broke Betty’s gaze. Not since the war have I seen
anyone look so lost, alone and afraid.
Betty nodded, and turned to the rest of us. ‘We should
go,’ she said. It didn’t seem right, leaving a wounded man behind, but there was
little else we could do at this point. Both Julius and his manservant had
requested we leave them alone now, and they did, as they said, have some sort
of plan.
Betty began to study Julius’s notes on the cab ride back
from that dreadful room. I have a horrible feeling that she is taking his mad
fantasy seriously.
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